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The rapid development of games: increasing graphics vs gameplay
If you are old enough to remember the early days of computer games, you know that there were many great games that were fun because of the exceptional gameplay and not just the graphics. Games started to get a bit more popular in the 90s when people started buying computers. In the early 90's, games like Maniac Mansion, X-com 1, and Civilization were extremely popular due to their unique and addictive gameplay. Today, games are mainstream and marketed to a mass audience. To market to everyone, many games these days focus on graphics and special effects rather than a single game. You see a lot of games that appear to be carbon copies of each other with slightly different twists.
These days many games try to be as realistic as possible and have as many textures and polygons stuck to it to wow your eyes. To market to everyone, many games these days focus on graphics and special effects rather than a single game. Although there is nothing wrong with a game with beautiful graphics, once the novelty of the graphics wears off, the gameplay is what keeps you playing. You see a lot of games that appear to be carbon copies of each other with slightly different twists. There are some games like Halo 2 that the developers obviously spent a lot of time tweaking to make sure the game was as enjoyable as possible. With Halo 2, the two things that give it an advantage in my opinion is the fact that player movement is slower than most games and weapons are very balanced. Also, instead of throwing tons of multiplayer maps at the player, the developers focused on making a limited number of quality maps.
Free software games are an option for people on a budget who value gaming over graphics. A free game is simply a game that is completely free and free of charge. Free software developers generally don't have the million dollar 3D engines to run their games so they need to make the games as fun as possible without all the bells and whistles of retail games. These developers create games simply for the love of making them, and sometimes they create unique, quality games that are definitely worth watching. Especially considering that these games are completely free. These games span all retail game categories, from massively multiplayer to 3D First Person Shooter. Some companies also release production-quality games as free software because they choose not to put the game into production or as a promotion.
